


At least we're together again

by Lerya



Series: Lerya's big bag of one-shots [18]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Kind of happy ending, Role Reversal, a lot fo hurt, together at last
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:21:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28836978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lerya/pseuds/Lerya
Summary: I ripped my heart out writing this role reversal, where it is Ace that loses his memories, and Sabo that gets executed at Marine Ford. I tried to give it a happy ending, but I'm not sure I succeeded.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy & Portgas D. Ace & Sabo, Portgas D. Ace & Whitebeard Pirates, Revolutionary Army & Sabo (one Piece)
Series: Lerya's big bag of one-shots [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831972
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30
Collections: One Piece Bingo 2020/2021





	At least we're together again

Sabo couldn’t believe that he got caught, not only that, but that he got caught by a Black Beard Pirate, all because their captain had decided to betray his crew and had called his shipmates to come with him.

Sabo himself had joined the Revolutionaries not long after he left his home island of Dawn, after all, he had lost the dream of becoming a pirate captain and wanted to document his journey over the seas. It also helped that with the revolutionaries, he could keep an eye out for his baby brother who had been left all alone on Dawn, perks of having a boss whose son was the same boy.

And hadn’t that been a surprise, when the revolutionaries had found him and tried to get him to join, lead by the great things they had heard, which he now knew were from gramps, about his information gathering, undercover work and adaptability.

It had taken him quite a while to say yes to that, finally getting convinced when Koala took the time to tell him just why they all followed Dragon, and what kind of man Dragon really was. Instead of all the things that were told about the worst criminal in the world.

It had made him think back about Ace, their oldest brother, who had been out fishing when a celestial dragon had come to visit Dawn, not that they had known that having made sure to stay away from the city and the trash heap after he recognized his father looking for him.

Luckily, the man hadn’t recognized him, not had he send anyone into the forest to look for him. But it had made Sabo tell his brothers that his parents were still alive, if only that neither of them cared about who he really way – they only cared about their standing, money and making sure he married well so they could move up in the world.

That one terrible day, Ace had decided to go out and catch them some fish, with the winter approaching, most of the animals in the forests were settling in for the winter, and as an unspoken agreement none of the boys went and hunted those that lived among the trees.

Anyway, Ace had proposed to go out and fish just off the coast, closer to the Grey Terminal, so the resident sea king couldn’t get to him. Luffy and Sabo hadn’t seen anything wrong with that, even if both of them should have when they noticed how little boats were on the sea at a time most fishermen were hard at work.

But they didn’t, and it cost them their older brother, who by chance, was spotted on route from the large ship, and was shot at – making his little boat blow up. Luffy and Sabo had been on the mountain when it happened and had rushed down into Foosha village in an effort to find a fisherman willing to go and look with them through the wreckage that had been Ace’s ship.

But none of them dared to go out on the water, not with the celestial dragon so close by. In the end, they got their confirmation of Ace’s death when his orange hat came to shore, parts of it, as well as the beads missing, most likely because of the explosion.

Sabo often thought back to his older brother, even more so when he was at a loss as to what to do with Luffy, or in recent years, how he could let a traitor slip past him and into the core of the revolutionaries – only for the man, Burgess, to wound Hak almost fatally. The fisherman puller through luckily, but still such a deed needed to be punished.

Which led him here. He had been foolish enough to refuse any help, setting out on his own towards paradise, where Burgess had been spotted last – in time with information coming in that a pirate on Whitebeard’s crew had done the same thing to the second division commander – which did leave the man dead.

Shaking his head, Sabo couldn’t do anything but look over the fields at Marine Ford, where a large group of marines were gathered, no doubt in an effort to try and curb the revolution when it hadn’t begun. But he knew what would happen, he knew none of them would come – not wanting to jeopardise their mission of ending the celestial dragon system once and for all.

He knew he would die here, surrounded by marines, as a lonely traitor to the system, instead of the hero he always dreamt he would be – and who he was in the eyes of his little brother.

Luffy, thinking about his little brother hurt, and made him hate himself even more – for the hurt he would cause the ball of sunshine that was Monkey D. Luffy, the rubber boy who managed to bounce back no matter what happened to him, even if Sabo realised, he would need a whole lot more to bounce back from this.

He hated that he would have to leave Luffy behind, just as Ace had left them behind all those years ago, Luffy would be truly alone now, with the exception of his crew. And he guessed in a way Dragon and Garp would look out for the Strawhat captain, he hoped it would be enough.

The marines around him seemed to realise that the revolutionaries wouldn’t come, there would be no big fight for Sabo’s life, and for once, none of them understood that being a revolutionaries were knowing you gave your life to the cause.

Sabo had taken peace with the knowledge that he would die here, and if here was on a pedestal for the whole world to see in Marine Ford, or in some dark and dirty cell in Impel Down, it didn’t matter. He had screwed up and endangered the cause, they wouldn’t come to get him.

Looking slightly to his left, he could see gramps asking Sengoku to be able to talk to Sabo for a moment. The Fleet admiral sighing but cutting the feed of the execution for a moment, allowing Garp to approach his blond grandson, a grim look on his face.

It would seem that things could get worse, as Garp told him that Ace had survived the explosion but was swept away in the current – luckily alive – only to be found by a Whitebeard commander, who took the boy with him to the Moby Dick.

The rumours they had heard however of Blackbeard killing his own commander had been right, it just so happened to be that this commander had been Ace.

Sabo gasped for breath, Ace had been alive, they just never knew, nor ever looked for him, thinking him to have passed – but now he did – their older brother had been alive and neither Luffy nor him had seen the man he had become.

Garp sighed, before his expression darkened even more, taking out a news article that proclaimed the destruction of the Strawhat pirates at the hand of the pacivistas and admiral Kizaru, after their captain punched a celestial dragon on Sabaody.

Sabo couldn’t help but start crying, thinking about the only consultation of all this would be to reunite with his brothers in the afterlife. He could see Garp trying to keep his tears at bay, realising that even if all three of them didn’t become marines, that didn’t mean he didn’t care.

Smiling slightly at his grandfather figure, Sabo whispered, “at least we’ll be together again.”

With that he turned towards the sea and rested his head on the execution platform, he could take this now, he had already made peace with dying today. But after this news, he would be happy to – finally able to reunite with his brothers when they hadn’t been able to while all of them were alive.

People would talk, for a long time, about the revolutionary that got executed in Marine Ford, how peaceful he looked, yet how elated he seemed to be about his end. The body was never claimed, and as such dumped into the sea to be taken care off by the fish.

In the afterlife however, three boys were once again reunited with each other, able to tell the others all about their adventures as Captain, second division commander or right hand of the revolution. It might not have been the greatest ending for all three of them, but it was an ending that could take peace with – after all, they had each other again, and would in time, be able to complete their crew once more to go on adventures on a different sea, in a different setting and without having to worry about Marines, Celestial Dragons or the World government taking or trying to take their freedom away from them.

While all three realised they had left Nakama behind, none of them regretted the choices they made to get where they were right now. Nakama could join them afterwards, for now – I the first time in 10 years, the ASL-brothers were together again.


End file.
